Vol 4 Chapter 4.1 (1/2)

Vol. 4 Chapter 4 Part 1

s.h.i.+n and Rionne s.h.i.+fted their gazes toward the sphere. About a minute later, the globe finally reached its limit.

KyuAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

A huge cry was raised together with the sound of something similar to gla.s.s cracking, and something broke out of the sphere.

What is that?

Rionne appeared to have never seen the emerging monster.

Looks like a Gryphon.

Gryphon?

Its a monster that usually inhabits the forest or highlands.

While s.h.i.+n explained, he activated a.n.a.lyze.

Guardian of rbh%t& Lv$%&

It has garbled letters, huh? A Guardian?

Barely readable portions of the name were displayed, and s.h.i.+n looked puzzled while tilting his head.

There was a monster with a Guardian prefix attached to their name. However, it was a huge golem with full body armor that would appear in the city and become the base of the players. On top of that, it didnt come out unless there was a special event.

The current Gryphon before them had crystal wings. Because the wings were made of transparent blue ice and had an angular-shape, it had a solid feeling that living things didnt have.

Is that ice?

s.h.i.+n judged that those wings were composed of ice crystals, as he saw the cold wave of air released by the wing of the Gryphon, who was generating white mist around it.

When observed carefully, ice also covered its talons up to its foreleg and the horn that had grown from its forehead. Though they were the same base color as its wings, there was also green blended into several places.

A portion of the ground near the Gryphon was already frozen. Was it due to the influence of the ice on its forelegs?

s.h.i.+n, is there something wrong?

No, it certainly resembles a monster I know, but its slightly different.

The monster was similar to Gla.s.s-Blue Gryphon. It was a monster that appeared in ice and snow zones.

However, a Gla.s.s-Blue Gryphon had its whole body made of crystal-like gla.s.s, which was different than the Gryphon that had just appeared. To begin with, s.h.i.+n didnt know of any kind of Gryphon that exceeded 5 mels in body height.

Its looking this way!

The Gryphon, which raised a roar, turned its gaze to the direction where s.h.i.+n and Rionne were.

Since their eyes met perfectly, its not possible to say it was just their imagination.

Kyuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!

Mu! Is it up to something?

Its bad to stay here, so Ill break the wall!

At the same time as the shout, s.h.i.+n broke through the wall in the room and jumped outside.

Rionne followed soon after, and the breath of ice which the Gryphon released hit the building directly. The building was frozen in an instant.

The Gryphon seemed to have seen that s.h.i.+n and Rionne escaped, as it turned its neck while breathing out ice in order to put them in the line of fire.

Thats dangerous! Were gonna jump!

Kyaa, what!?

s.h.i.+n carried Rionne and kicked through the air against the looming breath of ice.

He dodged the breath mid-air by a movement system martial arts skill Flying Shadow, and jumped into the shadow of another building.

Its a mowing down breath, huh? Im sure theres no such attack used by gryphons

I-Is that so? Rather, s.h.i.+n, I want you to lower me down now.

Rionne said, while stuttering in s.h.i.+ns arm.

The current body pose of Rionne was commonly referred to as holding the princess in ones arms state.

Ah sorry. It was emergency, so it was either this or I carry you under my arm.

When s.h.i.+n pulled Rionnes arm and evaded the breath, he was able to hold her under his arm, but as expected that may be inappropriate for a princess, so he changed it.

You reallyso what would you do? We cannot go near it since it attacked as soon as we showed up.

That kind of attack is a breathing spell or magic power charge; there will be a cooldown-time when the attack is used somewhere, so we have no choice but to attack at once. I will take charge of the front, so aim for its back while hiding in the building, Rionne.

Though it was a surprise attack, s.h.i.+n knew the capture method of a Gryphon himself.

Even if he was directly hit with the breath, he shouldnt be killed on the spot.

Will you be alright?

Leave it to me. I dont want to be hit, but Ive a way even if Im hit.

The worrying Rionne nodded, and s.h.i.+n stood up.

After seeing Rionne off, who was moving away from him, he jumped outside the building.

KyuAAAA!!

The Gryphon promptly shot its breath.

As if it knew s.h.i.+n was there, its aim was accurate.

s.h.i.+n bent over and evaded the breath coming straight at him, then started to run.

Though the Gryphon made a mowing down motion with its breath like it was natural, a similar attack wouldnt become a threat to s.h.i.+n.

Using both movement system martial arts skills Flying Shadow and Shukuchi, s.h.i.+n sometimes jumped over and dove under as he closed in upon the Gryphon without slowing down.

Hey, hey Im here. Where are you aiming at!?

While exercising one of the taunt skills, Clown Noise, s.h.i.+n stirred up the Gryphon aloud.

Did the Gryphon determine that its breath wouldnt hit as it saw s.h.i.+ns movements? The Gryphon aimed at s.h.i.+n with its left foreleg. s.h.i.+n then intercepted the talons made of ice with hisKakura. Taking advantage of his strength, from the lower position he hammered onto the lowered foreleg to reach a conclusion.

Kyui!!

Whoa!!

The Gryphon and s.h.i.+n rallied each other, and were both surprised at the weight of the opponents blow.

WhenKakurawas pressured by the talons of ice, s.h.i.+n jumped back at once.

This is not the physical strength of a Gryphon

The Gryphon in the game era was not such a strong monster to that degree.

Though it also depended on the kind, level 600 was the highest; it was an opponent with insufficient power to be considered a formidable enemy.

Yet, the current opponent didnt appear so.

s.h.i.+ns STR was more than 500, although it was being controlled by Limit. If he added the weapon compensation of Kakura, his STR would be close to 600.

With that being easily overwhelmed, s.h.i.+n concluded that the Gryphons STR was more than 700.

Did I underestimate it? Its power is also strong. I cant talk to Rionne either, huh?

s.h.i.+n lowered the Limit to II, as he muttered and scolded himself for being deceived by the Gryphons appearance. (T/N: The lower the Limit is, the stronger s.h.i.+n gets. Currently his stats was divided by 2(II) from his original stats)

Though it was not a complete release, his stats still exceeded 999 in the time of the game. Unless it was a powerful boss monster, nothing could overcome the current s.h.i.+ns attacks. As for why he didnt release the limit completely, it was because he couldnt estimate the power when attacking.

Unlike Schnee, right after Rionne was involved, neither evasion nor defense were possible. Similarly to the battle of the Lord Skull Face, this wasnt a situation where he could attack without thinking about the damage to the surroundings.

If I cant defeat it with this, it is no joke.

s.h.i.+n, in the same way as a while ago, started to attack the Gryphon.

The Gryphon, in response to that, raised its ice talons and was about to swoop down on s.h.i.+n.

*Hyaah!*

KyuAA!?

Their yell sparked.

Kakura and the ice talons struck each other directlythis time, the winner was Kakura.

It couldnt endure s.h.i.+ns overwhelming physical strength; the ice that covered the Gryphons left foreleg burst and scattered. Still, did the ice become a cus.h.i.+on? The Gryphons leg itself was safe. However, the Gryphon couldnt escape the impact, as it had its leg lifted and stumbled back a step or two.

Tch!

Nevertheless, the moment the ice covered leg was smashed, s.h.i.+n was surprised to see that the scattered ice that flew transformed into spears, and s.h.i.+n missed the opportunity to continue the attack.

The ice covering its legs is not an ordinary icetto!

s.h.i.+n, who witnessed the unexpected ability, dodged the extra ice spears that flew toward him.

The origin of the current ice spears were the Gryphons wings. From the large wings, which were unfolded, various small and large ice spears colored blue and green were scattered around to block s.h.i.+ns escape route.

Gryphons movement became sluggish, as there seemed to be damage to some extent.

KyI!

When the Gryphon made a cry sound, ice covered its left foreleg again.

The awkward movement of its left foot was restored accordingly. Apparently, its fighting power didnt seem to fall at the place where he smashed it.

Next is a barrage of breaths, huh?

While crus.h.i.+ng the ice spears with Kakura, s.h.i.+n attracted the Gryphons attention again.

On the edge of his view, he confirmed the figure of Rionne creeping up the back of the Gryphon. As s.h.i.+n changed his standing position, he examined the attack range of the Gryphon.

The range of the Gryphons neck movements limited the breath attacks direction. Also, it could only shoot the ice spears forward, and when s.h.i.+n went around to its side, he wasnt attacked. Though ice talons were equipped on both front and back legs, Rionne should have seen the situation where s.h.i.+n destroyed the talons.

She should be able to take the Gryphon by surprise now.

I should have its attention just in case.

s.h.i.+n exercised a taunt skillShura Rush when he confirmed that Rionne was ready with her Muspelm behind the Gryphon.

Even though there werent any other monsters around, he didnt know when they would appear. Therefore, using a taunt skill to attract the attention of a wide-ranging enemy would overwrite the Clown Noise, which collected only a single opponents hate; he decided to thwart the possibility of Rionne receiving a surprise attack reversely.

KyuA!

Thats right, look here!

While adding sporadic attacks, s.h.i.+n fixed the position of the Gryphon.

Then, the moment the Gryphon spread its wings in order to release ice spears, Rionne started her move.

Hyaah!

Muspelm, which gave off a vivid orange effect, hit directly on the joint of the right wing.

However, the wing seemed to have more strength than it appeared, for even with one or two katanas used to cut it, the wing was hardly damaged.

HyaAAAAA!!

A yell that contained a noticeable fighting spirit accompanied by a striking blow, she somehow succeeded in giving the Gryphons wing a small wound.

However, it didnt restrict the Gryphons movement. Rionne continued as it was, attacking the back of the raging Gryphon. Arcs were drawn continuously, as the orange-colored effect coveredMuspelm.

The rate of Rionne swinging Muspelm was faster than usual, and the power also increased proportionally to the speed.

Its fur also seemed to have high defensive power, as the Gryphon received almost no damage. However, if its back was attacked, which was the blind spot taken by Rionne, who was a melee-type Chosen One, even the Gryphon couldnt move properly. Though it tried to shake her off, it wasnt very successful.

The reason why Rionne could one-sidedly attack the Gryphon was because, besides it being caught off guard, she invoked fencing technique system martial arts skill Tyrant Beat.

While she couldnt use magic skills during the invocation, she raised her offensive ability and attack speed up to 1.4 times as compensation; it was a skill that dealt a stun effect for a very short time to the opponent every time the attack hit.

Even if the effect period was very short, when the condition was met, one-sidedly crus.h.i.+ng down the opponent was possible. It was often used in the game era by players whose occupation emphasised physical attacks.

Ugh, my skill ended! Sorry, but Ill leave it to you now!

Got it!

The Gryphons behind and the back of its neck, which were hacked at recklessly, were leaking little-amounts of blue mist from its wounds.

When looked at closely, it was like a blue spray that spewed out from the wounds. It didnt appear to be a liquid, as it faded and disappeared in the air when it rose 30 cemels like steam.

Is something leaking!? No, does the body fluid evaporate?

s.h.i.+n, who looked at the Gryphons state made inferences on the phenomenon he had never seen.

GRUUUUU!!

With Rionne separated away, the Gryphon flapped its wings in a big way and turned toward s.h.i.+n.

Its four legs had firmly stepped on the ground. Its HP was almost recovered when he looked at the Gryphon with a.n.a.lyze.

Because the level displayed was garbled, it was difficult to determine what level the monster was, but he expected level 800 or more from the amount of damage received. Though animal-type monsters typically didnt have high defensive power, it seemed that this didnt apply to the Gryphon in front of him.

This guy is a nuisance.

While provoking it so Rionne wasnt targeted, s.h.i.+n resumed his attacks on the Gryphon.

He aimed at the parts which werent covered in ice. As s.h.i.+n pa.s.sed through the ice spears unleashed from the Gryphon, he swung Kakura vigorously at its body. What was returned was a heavy feeling like beating a large ma.s.s of rubber.